WRITING INSTRUCTION ​TO EMPOWER ACADEMIC SUCCESS

​Write Away U is a program that builds confident writers who feel empowered to embrace the writing process and the power of revision to become better writers with every opportunity to practice.

​Our flagship Summer Camp is where the magic happens. Join us this summer to jump start your child's writing confidence before the new school year begins.

Your kids will learn to love to write again.

Summer Camp Philosophy

Julie Sweeney in her Brave Writer series compares writing development to language development, claiming they are both, at the core, about freedom. She states that “on the way to competence, a lot of belly flops are required as kids get their linguistic balance and control while diving into the pool of written language.” We need to remember the freedom we gave our children when they were learning to talk. We celebrated their babbling sounds (mama, baba), delighted in their errors (chacuzzi, pasketti), and encouraged the use of new words even while they slaughtered the structure and vocabulary on their way to fluency. In fact, we enjoyed their development and freedom so much, we often recorded their flubs in their baby books for posterity.

So why do we make our kids feel like every mistake in writing is a reflection of insufficient aptitude, evidence of poor character, or even lack of attention? I still remember the fear of turning my own written stories into one of my elementary teachers, fearing the bleeding of her red pen. It was as if she were stripping me of my voice before I was even able to discover I had one.

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Writing is messy. We need to give our young writers the freedom to make mistakes in writing as they had in speaking, and we need to give them even more years to make those mistakes because writing is harder than speaking. They need support, gentleness, and enthusiasm for their efforts.

With two weeks of freedom and all the gentle, enthusiastic support we can muster, you’ll be amazed at all we practice and the fluency your kids will find during this inspirational two weeks. ​With this dedicated time full of freedom and discovery, our young writers bring their stories to life – infusing their voice into their written word. Anyone can write a story, but the magic lies in writing stories that deserve and are begging to be told – those that are unique, surprising, personal, and can only be told by them.

We hope you can join us this summer.

Mrs. Larson and the WAU Team​

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When you join our mailing list, we will email you news of upcoming events and programs, and we will send you periodic pertinent articles about writing strategies, tips, tricks and insight to help you and your young writer build confidence.